From: "Daniel Schlieper" To: n0rc Subject: stuff for 'the Rock-Mite files' Date: Sunday, March 02, 2003 10:47 AM Dear Rod, here is another picture for the Rock Pile. It's the "Red Mite", a 7030 kHz Rockmite in an Italian licorice tin. This was my first soldering project ever. Thanks to the kind advice from you and Peter DL2FI everything worked fine. All I need to get on air is a decent antenna. ... -- Daniel Schlieper, M3CAX Cambridge UK
Also from Daniel: Drilling Holes without powertools Dear Rod, there is a cheap and easy way to get the holes into an Altoids tin or similar: with a gimlet and a set of files. These tools came from the local DIY and cost less than 10 GBP in total. The T shaped gimlet is advertised as "ideal for making pilot holes in wood". It works for thin metal as well, so it was used to get pilot holes of 2.5 mm diameter in the tin. No backing board was needed (other than the tumb at the beginning). The rest of the holes were filed (rasped). I used a 6 piece warding file set. First, the small (3 mm approximately) diameter file was used, than larger ones. It took only minutes to get a hole done. The manual handling allows to give the hole the correct shape and position. The picture shows the tools and two Altoids-like tins (the Red Mite on the left :-) as well as the gimlet and the files that were used. The right tin was my fist try. Here the metal got bent a little bit. But it looks worse than it actually is. I only abandoned this tin because I liked the design of the other one more. There is no real need for precision at the beginning. Just get going. As you can see, a power drill or a Dremel tool are not necessary at all. Apart from the 5 holes at the side of the tin (Power, BNC, switch, audio and key), another 4 holes were made in the bottom for the M3 x 10 mm screws to mount the PCB. Nuts were used as spacers. Happy soldering and 73 de Daniel M3CAX